UTSA Receives $822K to Purchase Electron Microscopes

Photonics.comMar 2008
The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) announced it has received $822,000 from the Robert J. Kleberg Jr. and Helen C. Kleberg Foundation to purchase three high-powered electron microscopes. The scanning, tunneling, and atomic force microscopes will be housed in the College of Sciences but will be made available for multidisciplinary research ranging from physics and engineering to archaeology and art conservation. "These microscopes, which represent some of the most important tools in modern science, will form the nucleus of a groundbreaking research unit that will be unique not only here in San Antonio but also in the entire state of Texas," said UTSA President Ricardo Romo. The foundation has donated more than $2.5 million to UTSA over the past decade.

An instrument consisting essentially of a tube 160 mm long, with an objective lens at the distant end and an eyepiece at the near end. The objective forms a real aerial image of the object in the focal plane of the eyepiece where it is observed by the eye. The overall magnifying power is equal to the linear magnification of the objective multiplied by the magnifying power of the eyepiece. The eyepiece can be replaced by a film to photograph the primary image, or a positive or negative relay...

The technology of generating and harnessing light and other forms of radiant energy whose quantum unit is the photon. The science includes light emission, transmission, deflection, amplification and detection by optical components and instruments, lasers and other light sources, fiber optics, electro-optical instrumentation, related hardware and electronics, and sophisticated systems. The range of applications of photonics extends from energy generation to detection to communications and...

An observed effect of the ability of certain atomic particles to pass through a barrier that they cannot pass over because of the required energy level, based on a law of quantum mechanics that predicts that the particles have a finite probability for tunneling according to their quantum-mechanical nature.